Category: Creative Advice

Any entrepreneur or executive must be ready to understand psychological principles that help you understand your target audience or buyer’s approach.

As a perfect example, digital commerce platform Business 2 Community stated how people are motivated by loss of opportunity or latter regrets when making purchase decisions; whether B2C or B2B.

Subsequently, creativity often prompts a different approach in problem solving and when such approaches are used in the business atmosphere, the results can steer you pleasantly surprised or be a valuable marketing lesson.

Here are 3 simple reasons every business must understand creativity and consumer psychology for effective marketing:

1) Emotional appeal creates a desirable lifestyle

A middle-aged man may purchase gym membership not just because he wants to improve his health or immune system, despite knowing the fact that it may reduce risk of heart diseases; but also because he wants to look good and enjoy a rejuvenated life.

A guy may buy a car not just to travel with great tech features or fuel efficiency, but because it makes him feel cool and good in social status.

Generally, when making a purchase decision; people get influenced by many factors within online and offline MarComms. People do not always purchase products or services to fulfil just real needs, but also to satisfy their emotional desires. This also happenes in the B2B world too.

They want more time and control, self-confidence, increased comfort, or what they perceive as a better life. They want to stay updated, influential or to better express themselves. Of course, people are influenced by facts and figures, but this information is often outweighed by emotional aspects within one’s lifestyle.

By using this psychology principle in your marketing; whether online or offline, you are simply meeting your consumers’ ultimate needs from actual features to the psychological and emotional quality attracting them to your business.

If you understand at what point of psychological discomfort they’re struggling, your product or service can fit and speak directly to their struggles or needs.

2) The benefit of Reciprocity

As introduced in Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: “The Psychology of Persuasion”, the idea of reciprocity simply means “if you see someone doing something nice for you, in return you will naturally want to do something for them too”.

There are multiple ways to use the reciprocity principle in your marketing. The modern way with digital is by your content marketing by anything from offering a special eBook, a branded sweatshirt to even offering your expertise on a difficult subject matter.

Even sending a thoughtful, hand-written note will do in establishing reciprocity. You need to provide some value to your buyer before you ask something in return.

3) Credibility evokes psychological adaptation and consumer trust

Do you want to know the best ways to influence your customer’s behaviour to act?

Here are two possible reasons why people won’t purchase your product.

No interest in your offering

Unsure about the benefits and value your product or service delivers

In marketing, it’s important to recognise that people always buy products for their own reasons, not yours. A lot of consumers are concerned about possible risks of fraud or because the service offered online is not good enough or they will never receive it.

Credibility is important; especially online where the entry for sellers can be low if they’re unfamiliar with modern marketing practice or experience higher offline returns better for their business. By using this psychology principle, you will be able to fully understand the psyche of the average customer’s buying approach. This will help you engage the ideal target audience effectively.

Just imagine how effective your marketing can be by already knowing your customer’s psychological profile?

The key takeaway here is to continually test, analyse your results and optimise them. This knowledge provides small tweaks when creating a huge difference.

Comment below with how your perceive creativity and psychology working hand-in-hand for your marketing activity – our agency team will love to hear from you.

Last week we have discussed the importance of understanding the video and how people use variety of things together to create an ambience that pulls a viewer in (alongside some examples). What I want to bring up today is even more important, yet rarely discussed and widely ignored by people who are starting out: planning.

Before we start, let me address one issue, there is nothing wrong with improvisation and the “spirit of the moment”, but those will come way easier when you have planned before. The idea is brutally simple if you have planned for most of the video already, the unexpected moments are much easier to deal with. Whether it is a spark of creative energy or equipment malfunction.

Let’s tackle them step by step:

Message and feeling

Now I am going to sound like a broken record yet once more: “CHECK YOUR AUDIENCE & WHAT MESSAGE THEY RESPOND TO?”. This includes any stats, info, pen portraits, season, feeling, client’s wishes and so on. Not to sound ominous, but if you at least don’t keep this in mind, you will fail.

So, with Christmas advertising long done and launched we are focusing on other things coming up. Mostly, the spring and summer stuff, but let’s pause on Christmas. Jolly seasons can be one of the toughest shoots you will ever do (especially if you are shooting outside). At this time you need to convey a certain feeling and the cheer of the world. Despite how good it looks at the end trust me it can be a gruelling experience. The weather has to become your friend not your enemy. Let’s be honest don’t you think Christmas as soon as you see snow (just look at John Lewis Snowman advert OOH gets me every time).

No here is a fun thing, to me this is “chicken and the egg” situation, which comes first. I prefer to have a script first, so I roughly understand what shots to use, how to position the characters better etc. Some people are the opposite, do the scenes first figure out the moves later. My advice is start using my way, because generally it is easier (and it is the right way).

Here is a rough mock-up I did for one of mine “free time” projects.

Scene 1: Car Upside down after a crush. Screaching sounds and a man in pain.

Scene 2: Flash back to how we got there. Two young lads walking to a car discussing the night after a couple of drinks.

Scene 3: Following the car from the back (3rd person view). The driver (one of the friends) gets annoyed with a car in front for obbeying the speed limits.

Scene 4: After the crush is repeated quickly we cut to a hospital corridor where one of the guys is summoning the courage to go inside the hospital room.

Scene 5: When he finally enters, viewer sees a guy in a wheel chair looking out of the window. Close up to the lips and chin of the guy who walked in.

“Hi, I am … sorry”

Scene 6: Cut to black, logo and slogan appear (dead silence)

Equipment

Now I am first in line of people who will say you can shoot a great video on your iPad. However, for some projects this may simply not be enough. So, before you venture out there, plan what will you take and when will you use it.

Actors, products, places

Now here is where all the preparation comes in. If you have worked hard on stage 2, this will be easy, as you will have a very clear idea of what to do next. This will include all the locations and what people have to look like. Of course, you will rarely be able to find exactly what you were looking for, but at least you will come close because of the work done.

Now actors, as you grow you will be able to hire models, actors etc., but for now try to stick to your friends or aspiring “Instagrammers” (yes very easy to find there and cheap). When looking for actors make sure you know what you want them to look like and what role to play. Maybe give them examples or even exercises to do. If it is a lady, make sure to specify the make-up too. Will save loads of time.

Products, well, relatively simple. Make sure you ask your client for at least 3 samples of whatever you will be shooting. Additionally you might want to learn a few “fake” product tricks (Please let me now in comments and I will either write a blog about it or message you directly).

Shoot dates (organising people and weather)

Now we come to the painful bit, making sure everyone and everything is available. Now in the full professional shoot that wouldn’t be a problem you hire actors and models, you say they come. But unfortunately, you are not there yet. So my advice prepare a week in advance and make sure (during the week) everyone sticks to the plan.

The worst moment is when you have to shoot in a particular weather. Unless you know your way around AfterEffects & PremierePro (or powerful enough alternatives), you will need to wait. This especially puts more pressure on you and your crew, as everyone has to be available as soon as the rain, snow etc. hits.

To sum up this week’s video idea there are three words: “Plan for everything”. If do your planning in advance you will free up so much time to improvise and add a few different angles to your shoot that you might have not thought of doing before.

This is it for video advice this week, but look out for next week’s blog on actual shooting and editing to make your final video shine.

Effectiveness of all marketing communications can be broken down with 60-20-20 rule:

60% – Offer

20% – Channels

20% – Creativity

From the start, let’s say the offer (e.g. message, content etc.) is the most important part, and although creativity is only 20%; you must never underestimate this part. The biggest problem with it however is making sure creativity is channelled in a right way. In order to do so, one must clearly understand the following rules.

Never forget the audience

If I could have a penny for every time, I remind our clients, colleagues and friends, I wouldn’t need to work ever again. Key to this is relatively simple, do your research, segment well and you are on the way to success.

Let’s start with research, this will largely depend on your business itself. If you’re a local bakery. you wouldn’t research the entire world but would also need to be familiar with the trends in your industry.

As an example, you might start advertising low calorie options or starting to offer smaller sets of delicious pastries. This is an example of psychographic research, where you see that people are more generally aware of their health. So, your offer is pastry sets (60%) and the creativity should be health aware message (20%).

2. Don’t get carried away

Today, there is a variety of design & creativity tools at your fingertips, and it is very important to remember less is more.

When reaching this step of actual design, it is important to remember the last step. After all, your audience picks the channels for you and not the other way around. If we continue with our bakery example, most likely your budget is not going to be big so most likely the owner will opt for social media; which is especially great when you want to target local.

The biggest problem with it is what we call ‘deadscroll’ (when a person just mindlessly scrolls through the feed until something exceptional catches your eye. First thing that springs to mind is ‘Let’s do a video or an animation‘ because everyone saw the stats that videos deliver better results than images.

However, this is where a little problem creeps in and it is that those videos delivering better results for brands already have established followers interested in the content. So, when deciding on the media type for creativity, remember eye-catching and interesting and not what everyone else wants you to do.

3. Interaction, interaction & interaction

After the message is published, you will need to plan and provide options for what you want people to do and how will they interact with the message.

Again, our local bakery should provide above mentioned info but it also might show its location for new customers or to remind existing ones about its location. This, by no means is the only aspect available, there are also web links, shopping, reviews etc. Those options should be chosen carefully (less is more) depending on the objective in mind.

Increase sales online gives them a website presence, given by a local map. Also for local businesses partnerships are key. Our bakery could make connections with a local gym to advertise healthy treats.

4. Measurements

Last but not least, make sure you keep track of everything you do. In today’s online world, you can measure nearly everything on minute basis. There are plenty of free tools out there to help you do it. Facebook ad measurements, Pixel and Google Analytics are examples of a few to name. Remember collecting results is not only to keep your campaign on track, but also for future research.

In conclusion, make sure you keep to the rules and you will be on track for success!

Look at the cover image for this blog post! Everyone is exposed to brand messages on daily basis. However, everyone has their own little actions to protect themselves and block those messages. Starting from making tea all the way to scrolling Facebook feed. That being said, there are some adverts that touch us and actually make us do something. Here is the list of best adverts (in my opinion) from different sectors (in no particular order), that influenced me, with justifications for my choices.

WWF – #iProtectTigers

I have been supporting WWF initiative to protect Bengal Tigers for a while now (so in a way you can say that I am biased). When I first saw this advert, I might have shed a tear (movie like manly tear though), when my friend saw it within 2 days he called to say that he is now donating too. So why did it work? One simple reason! It breaks the barrier between what we hope to do and what we can achieve.

Baileys – Christmas Nutcracker

Now, am I fan of ballet? No. Do I drink Baileys? No. Why did I buy it that Christmas? Simple, every time I was invited to a party hosted by a girl I would bring one. This advert portrays a certain romance and excitement. Tell me you haven’t attended a Christmas party where there was no drama!?

All I can say is that Baileys has done a fantastic job that year. Never left for a party without a bottle of it.

Toys: Special from Our Founders

These radical spinning tops were awesome as a 10-year-old kid! Who would have thought I’d be obsessed with collecting them all?

From the TV advert to watching the VERY 1ST episode of this exciting anime on Cartoon Network, I’d be practising my launch and battling out my Dragoon Beyblade against both my late brother and primary school friends at break, lunchtime and even after school.

However, when they broke from trying out ridiculous stunts on the brick wall; I’d pester my parents to buy me another cool beyblade top. Talk about nostalgic marketing huh?

It looks absolutely ridiculous to me now, but I want a real Pokeball on my desk! This is not the advert I saw when I was growing up. I remember the one I saw in breaks between Pokemon series and damn I wanted one. It would open, have a miniature figurine inside and I would battle my vicious opponents in school (my year 3 school friends). No matter who will tell you what, but pester power works!

Probably one of the most confusing beginnings of a blog article, but there is no full proof formula. Each designer has a different way of creating it. Sometimes the idea comes right away, sometimes it doesn’t come for days. Here I will share how Content 45 logo was created.

First step for me is research about the company, its history, morals, beliefs and goals. However, when it comes to start-ups you won’t have such depth of information. So, in such scenario we skip to step two, which is word associations.

Content 45 is a digital agency providing variety of services to SMEs, created by highly zealous entrepreneur (my boss is actually like this). Here are the word associations I came up with when thinking of digital agencies.

The ones that I find more interesting, I then highlight and research separately in more detail. That includes anything from pictures to blog articles. After that is done we move onto step three, pencil and paper.

Now you can see the first “joking” idea I had, and for the lack of clarity I crossed it out.
Now here is where a great partner and friend is great help. Peter and I have known each other for more than 4 years now and despite agreeing on a lot of things there is still healthy bouncing of idea of each other. People like that are very important for generating ideas. I sent a few straightened mock-ups to my boss and great friend, Peter who said I can see the potential but make it more digital. This is when I cried out pixels and frames, then he added waves. Here is the first sketch on paper, that I have done. After a few play around the final sketch with annotations was created before developing it in Illustrator.

Now, here is when it get’s a bit more complicated if you haven’t previously used Adobe Illustrator software. Creating a vector graphic (graphic design term that describes an artwork that can be resized for any publishing parameters without losing any quality) I have arrived to this black and white mock-up.

If we look back at step one we can recognise a few key words (just to stress how important that step is). Post and waves are here. That being said, there is still one element missing – background. Here is where pixels come in from our discussion with Peter, after all what is more digital than this. As you might imagine creating a pixel grid in black and white for the logo is challenging. This is where psychology of colours comes in. Despite some people reservations that it doesn’t matter, I assure you that it is crucial step. After all combination of red and yellow makes you hungry (guess what logo I am talking about). There are plenty of infographics out there, so make sure to have a look at them if you are creating a logo. However, as blue is a sign of stability, reliability and calmness, we decided that Content 45 should use it to project those qualities for the clients.

So after looking and Newton’s colour wheel (Yes, the guy who had an apple fall on his head also created probably one of the most important discovery for colour for designers), the colour palette of blues was created and used for pixel background. Here is the final logo.

If you have any questions about the article please write them in the comments below. We would love to hear your thoughts and questions. Thanks for reading!